Another Day to Break
by Normryl
Summary: 'But she knew, in her gut this wasn't about the people of Woodbury. It wasn't about their growing community. It wasn't even about The Governor. It was Merle. It was always Merle.' Because I'm still not over Merle's death and some grieving needs to be done by Daryl. One shot... maybe more? (Title previously 'I'll see You Soon')
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Another Day to Break**  
**Summary: **But she knew, in her gut this wasn't about the people of Woodbury. It wasn't about their growing community. It wasn't even about The Governor. It was Merle. It was always Merle.  
**Notes: **Because I'm still not over Merle's death and some grieving needs to be done by Daryl.

* * *

"It's nice with all these people around, don't you think?"

Carol said, placing the shirts she'd found for Daryl onto the bed he was sat on. He was fiddling with his crossbow, she assumed maintaining it in some way. There was his ever present red cloth at hand so maybe he was just cleaning it.

He shrugged. "If you like people, I guess."

"You like people." She said, smiling towards him.

"I like _our _people."

Carol frowned at him slightly. "They are our people."

He exhaled sharply, disagreeing. "Half those people were baying for my blood when I was there. Some of 'em's faces I can remember in the crowd."

She took a step closer to the bed and sat down, next to the shirts she'd placed there moments ago. "They didn't know the truth. They were scared. The Governor played everyone against one another like some puppet master." But she knew, in her gut this wasn't about the people of Woodbury. It wasn't about their growing community.

It wasn't even about The Governor.

It was Merle. It was always Merle.

"It'll get easier, you know," she said gently.

Because she knew it was the truth. Knew that despite it all, she got over her own grief because these people stood beside her. They held her up when she was too grief stricken to stand on her own. And she'd be damned if she'd let Daryl do this alone. So far, he'd been surprisingly receptive towards her attempts to help him through it.

But she knew him well enough now.  
Knew that if he looked to her with all the worry and fear that often lived within those blue eyes and she held firm, showed him that he could always trust her and she'd never hurt him, that he would believe it and take that little step closer towards her. To letting her hep him.

He nodded. Didn't want to talk about it today.

Sometimes he'd tell her something.  
A brief little nothing about Merle, but something that meant so much to Daryl.

He liked to keep the biggest parts of Merle to himself. Just like she did with Sophia.

She liked to remember those mornings when Sophia was a toddler and she'd sneak into her bed after Ed had left for work and they'd snuggle underneath the blankets together, blowing raspberries on one another's tummies and giggling together.

Those were the things that were just for her.

From what Michonne had told them when she'd returned after Merle took her to do the deal, the others had been able to work out that Merle was going to try and stop The Governor.

And they knew that Merle would come back a hero.  
Or he wouldn't come back at all.

And Daryl, well he was walking into the unknown. He'd walk into a battlefield, could get caught in the crossfire, or he could get their too late.

The battle had been fought and lost by the time he arrived. She knew that much.

He hadn't said much else about it.

Michonne had spoke more about what had happened. She'd pieced enough of it together to know the truth. And Carol thought that Daryl took a little bit of that with him. That she saw what Merle had tried to do.

He'd tried.

She thought it must be of some comfort. Especially because Michonne said it.

She didn't like Merle. Had no reason to lie. Wouldn't be trying to spare Daryl's feelings either.

Just spoke the truth as she saw it.

"Come on, lunch must be ready by now." she said standing up and holding her hand out to him. She'd found the little gesture was being received by him recently. And she wanted to comfort him in some way so badly. But she knew that unlike Rick when he'd lost Lori, she couldn't reach out for him in such a way, he'd never allow it. So she kept it small and simple.

Didn't push it.

And if he didn't reach for her hand, she could brush it off.

But he did reach for her hand.

She gripped it tightly, his hand was warm and sweaty despite the colder weather, and she squeezed it a little harder than she needed too. Daryl cast aside the crossbow, left it on the bed and held her hand until he was stood.

She smiled to him as their eyes met and his lips turned up slightly at her.

But the sadness was in his eyes. And she'd do anything to take it away. But just like everyone else here, she couldn't do anything about it.

She let his hand go as she started towards the door, him following closely behind.

And they didn't speak the whole way down. Some of the new people were sat at the table eating already.

Carol grabbed two bowls and dished them both a serving of rice up, while Daryl took a container of water for them both. He sat down at the stairs and she sat beside him, eating in comfortable silence.

When the others cleared away from the table, Carol got up and moved over to the seat. "I need a table. Come on," she said beckoning him over.

She wasn't sure if he was going to join her or not but Maggie and Glenn came in at that moment and helped themselves to some food and sat down at the table.

And the tension became obvious.

"Did we take your seat, Daryl?" Maggie asked. She was sat facing him, Glenn had his back to the hunter.

He shook his head before standing. "Nah, I'm finished here anyway," he said dumping his bowl on the side before heading back to the cells.

Carol watched him go before continuing with her own meal.

Maggie reached over and put her hand on Carol's arm, offered a smile but there was nothing to say.

She just wished the people she loved could stop hurting.


	2. Chapter 2

When she finished up eating, Carol headed back towards the cells herself. She took her time, Glenn and Maggie leaving before her.

She cleared Daryl's bowl, noticed he barely ate anything really, and cleaned them both up and put them away.

She passed Daryl's cell, looked in on him to see that he was either sleeping or trying too.  
And even if he just wanted to be alone, she left him too it. They all needed their own time and space.

She made her way to her own cell. There were some clothes she left on her own bed that would be good for her although some needed patching up a little. She decided now was the time to do it.

She was surprised to find Maggie waiting inside her cell. Maggie smiled a nervous smile at the older woman.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

"I wanted to talk," Maggie said. "About Glenn and Daryl."

"Oh?" Carol was intrigued now.

"You think it's okay in here?" Maggie said, looking a little nervous.

Carol nodded. "I think Daryl's sleeping," she moved over to the bed and picked up the clothes she left there earlier and sat down, motioning for Maggie to sit down too.

"I know Glenn's not been himself since Woodbury, but him and Daryl always got on and now it's like they can't speak to one another."

Carol nodded. She'd noticed it too, more than once. "What's Glenn said?"

"He feels bad. The day Merle died, Daryl had talked to him about forgiving Merle and Glenn blew him off. What can he say after that?"

"I don't know," Carol admitted. "Daryl hasn't really talked about it much. Not Merle, or what happened to him. I don't think he's angry with Glenn though."

"Will you help me? Make them talk?"

Carol smiled. Nodded. "We can try."

* * *

There was some kind of emergency with one of the old people.

That's what Carol had told him when she'd asked him to cover her watch. And he'd shrugged and gone on his way, not questioning it further.

He knew someone else would be on watch, they always stayed on watch in pairs now, didn't really think about who.

Not until he opened the door and saw Glenn sat there. He was pretty sure they both wore equal looks of horror at the idea of being together in the room. And Daryl almost turned and left, but he would just be making someone else take over.

So he made his way to one of the corners and looked out at the tree line and the walkers at the gates. Everything out there looked fine. Had done for a while now.

At Glenn's sigh, Daryl felt his lip twist, almost turned to ask him what his problem was. But he held back, swallowed it down.

Silence stretched out before Glenn attempted to break it. "I'm sorry," he ventured quietly.

It was the first time the pair had spoke to one another since Daryl's apology on Merle's behalf. They'd been together during discussions with the group but both men had acted as though the other didn't exist.

But Daryl didn't respond to the apology, so Glenn tried elaborating slightly. "I didn't hate Merle..." he began.

"Yeah you did," Daryl answered simply. He glanced round slightly, catching a glimpse of Glenn as he stood and watched him nervously.

"Okay, I did, but I didn't want him to die," Glenn explained.

This time Daryl fully turned round to face Glenn. "The first day we came back here, you wanted to give him up to The Governor in exchange for everyone else's freedom. So don't act like this ain't everything you wanted from the start," Daryl said. The prison really wasn't a great place for conversation. Especially when you were conspiring against someone's brother.

Glenn dropped his head a little. "Okay, I did say that. And if I'd had my way, I would have done it too. In theory anyway. I just didn't want him here. And I'm... I'm just sorry."

Daryl turned his back to Glenn. "Keep your sorry. Save them for the people in _your _family."

"I told you who my family was, back there on that road," Glenn insisted.

"Yeah, and you said Merle was _my_ blood."

"Look Daryl, I'm trying here..."

"Well I ain't asking ya too. You wanna clear a guilt conscience by saying you're sorry, then you're done. I don't need to hear it. It don't mean a damn thing to me. I don't care that you're sorry, I don't care that you didn't want it to happen. You think I give a shit about that? About you? It was _my _brother that died, that got left in some shit hole to come back as a walker... " Daryl stopped himself abruptly, his anger surging. "It was _my _blood. Not yours. Ain't got anything to be sorry about."

And with that, Daryl left.


	3. Chapter 3

"What happened?" Carol asked as she sat beside him.

Tyresse looked to the woman, shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry about this whole mess. Feel like I walked into the middle of something here," he confessed.

She nodded, her face showing no emotion towards him. She just needed to know. "So?" she pressed.

He let out a sigh. "I dunno. Was talking to Glenn. Asking him about the others... the other graves. And then that other guy..."

"Daryl," Carol filled in for him.

"Right, he just went crazy at him," Tyresse looked down at his bruised knuckles, shame swelling inside of him. "I didn't mean for it to get so out of hand."

And there it was. The reason why Carol couldn't quite meet his eye. But seeing those swollen, bloodied knuckles and knowing how they had got that way, she saw red for a second and had to fight her urge to say something she'd later regret. Carol nodded. Knew that he felt bad about it. "You make this right with Daryl. And then you don't ever lay a finger on him again. Understand?"

And it must have been her tone, because Tyresse wordlessly nodded.

* * *

After speaking with Tyresse, she went straight to Daryl's cell.

Knew he'd be there. She didn't ask if he minded her coming in, she just did it. Sat down on the stool just inside the door.

He was biting his thumbnail and took a moment or two to actually look up over to her.

He didn't look as bad at all. A small cut beside his eyebrow and the skin beneath the same eye had split. Both had been tended too by Hershel who'd not felt the need to stitch them. Clearly he'd also get a black eye but that wouldn't come out until later. At the minute it just looked a little red and puffy.

"What happened?"

He frowned slightly and looked away, looked thoughtful before turning back to her. "Nothin' really," he said "Jus' guy stuff."

Carol found herself frowning back at him. "You and Tyresse?"

Daryl just shrugged. "Weren't really him and me. He was jus' stickin' his nose in. Ain't gotta problem with him."

"Glenn?" Carol stated simply. She could tell from the dark look that came over Daryl that was exactly where the problem was. Maggie was right that those two needed to get past this. Easier said than done apparently. "What did he do?"

She knew Daryl didn't wanna talk about it. Knew that his very nature made him want to clamp his mouth shut and stay silent until she just walked away.

But he'd changed so much and she was the one person he did open up too and share a few things with.

And just maybe because this had upset him enough he did start to talk to her, however brief and lacking details it was.

"Jus'... stuff," Daryl told her.

"Come on, what am I supposed to do with that?" Carol said, hoping to encourage him gently.

He wasn't looking at her again. "Was stupid really. Should've ignore him."

He stopped speaking again. "Go on," she encouraged.

"Was like Merle didn't even matter," he said, looking down picking at his nails.

And she knew he was lost in his thoughts and she wasn't likely to get anything else from him, at least which made sense to her.

She left without him looking up once.

* * *

Carol stood at the door of Glenn and Maggie's cell.

Looked to her like Daryl had managed to clock Glenn on the nose considering the bloodied cloth he held to his nose. Maggie sat beside him, offering him her support.

"He sent you down to finish me off?" Glenn asked, trying to humour the situation but his tone didn't hold the right tone.

Carol gave a small smile. "I'm still trying to find out what exactly happened."

"Look, just tell Daryl I'm sorry, okay?"

"Tell him you're sorry? Glenn, if you're sorry, tell him yourself. I'm not playing messenger between the two of you. This is between you and Daryl and you're both making it affect everyone else. And it's not fair. Tyresse shouldn't have got involved because it wasn't his fight. So whatever happened between the two of you, it's up to you to fix it now. Because this is our family and I can't stand and watch it be destroyed."

Maggie stood up when Carol finished and went and stood beside her. "She's right, Glenn. "You have to try."

He nodded as the two women left him alone.

* * *

**A/N:** So, the events mentioned here will be discussed in the next chapter. I didn't mean for it to go this way, Daryl wouldn't tell Carol though, so it went this way instead.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Glenn lingered outside the cell, working himself up to go in.

The prison was quiet, everyone outside, tending to other things. And he was grateful for that. At least he and Daryl could have some privacy.

He was about to go in when Daryl peered round the corner of his cell, locking eyes with Glenn.

"You'd make a shitty hunter," Daryl told him. He crossed his arms and leant against the frame of the cell's entrance.

Glenn swallowed and was sure Daryl must have heard him. Even though he wasn't intimidated by Daryl like he used to be he still knew that at certain times Daryl could be volatile. Merle was that sore point still.

"I don't know what to say," Glenn confessed.

"Ain't nothin' to say," Daryl countered. "it's all been said."

"Maggie and Carol think that..."

"Maggie and Carol are just trying to make nice. There's nothing to say," Daryl repeated. "We don't have to be friends. We don't have to be anything. Let's just play nice and leave it at that."

Glenn nodded, not sure what else to say. And then Daryl was turning away and Glenn was standing alone.

* * *

Something settled into Daryl.

A feeling, deep in his gut. It made him uncomfortable, restless. His gut was clenching worse than those days he had to go home when he knew Daddy would be drunk and angry, when he knew he was in for a beating.

But there were no beatings in his life any more.

It was a realisation that had done this to him. A realisation of the truth in the prison right now.

He'd sat there thinking about the group.

What he'd done for them. What they'd done for him and he realised that he was the bottom of the list of important people in the prison right now.

Hershel had his girls to care for him and Glenn was their family through his relationship with Maggie. Rick had Carl and Judith, and Michonne seemed to be close to them since their trek out together.

And there was him. Him and Carol, the odd ones out.

And that's what hit him.

The fact that he would give his life for every single one of those people if he could, but he knew that all of them had someone else to live for, someone who relied on them.

It wasn't that he knew that Rick or any of the others didn't value him and what he did, it was knowing that all of them had something else that they needed to protect more than him.

If Rick could save Daryl in a situation, Daryl knew he would, without hesitation. But if he had to pick, if Carl was also in danger, Rick *had* to pick him. And of course he did. He'd hate Rick if he didn't.

It was just that realisation. That you were at the bottom of that list.

And God, it made him feel pathetic.

It made him miss Merle.

Merle who did everything he could at the end to protect him.

Merle who would have died for him and did.

He died for him.

And he had no one left.

He was pulled from his self pity by the sound of someone stirring by the door to his cell. He looked up to see Michonne standing there. Her face was blank, unreadable.

He hoped he managed to pull himself together enough to stow away his own emotions.

"Was jus' going down to sit by Andrea's grave a while. Wanna come?"

He felt a new wave of pity hit him. Poor Andrea.

God this new world sucked.

Why did the people in his life have to keep being taken? Why couldn't he go and someone like Andrea live? She was a sweet girl. She tried so hard to do the right thing.

"Hey?" Michonne said gently, pulling his attention back.

He shrugged but got up anyway. He could do with looking at something other than his cell.

* * *

Michonne talked to Andrea.

Talked to her like she was there with her. Told her about the things the new people were getting up to at the prison, how the group was getting on and all the while, Daryl stood behind her, kicking up the dirt with his boot, feeling awkward as his darted to Merle's own grave and then away again.

He couldn't look at it without seeing Merle's clouded eyes as he'd slowly made his way towards him, or the way he snarled at Daryl as he tried to turn him into his next meal. Mostly when he looked at it though he remembered the way Merle had been laying on the floor after Daryl had killed him.

The way his skull had been caved in as Daryl had stabbed it time and time again. How it didn't really look like Merle after that.

He remembered Andrea afterwards, when Michonne had finally left the room with her.

She still looked like Andrea. At least until you got to the hole in the back of her head, brain matter matted into her blonde hair. The memory of it nearly made Daryl gag.

Michonne was still going strong in her talk and Daryl's legs ached so he sat down at the foot of Merle's grave, but he was facing Michonne. She smiled slightly to him as she continued her chat.

He let out a small sigh. Wished he could say something to Merle.

Wished he could feel like it would help if he did.

He looked over to the cross he'd made again. Then looked past it to T Dog and Lori's.

They'd made sacrifices too. Just like Merle. For Carol and for Judith.

Merle was as good as them. Deserved to lie beside them.

Damn, he didn't wanna do this right now. He stood up again. "Where are you going?" Michonne asked.

"I can't sit here and talk to the dirt," Daryl griped as he headed off back towards the prison.

Michonne watched him go and looked back to where Andrea sat across from her. _"Glad to see you two are getting along," _Andrea said to her. "Maybe it was too soon for him," Michonne pondered.

_"Or maybe he just doesn't see Merle."_


End file.
